Handmade because you're worth it.

Did you ever stumble across a place that was closed then stumble back upon that same place during business hours?

This is the situation we found ourselves in Saturday afternoon travelling through Birdseye.

I had passed an old run down antique/junk store on the way to a turkey shoot in Schnellville a couple years ago. The place was so full of treasures that you couldn’t even see in the windows. I had always wanted to go back and check this place out and has luck would have it we were in the neighborhood this past weekend and the open sign was lit. Amen.

My lovely wife and I had made the trek to Jasper to pick up a case of the finest smoked bacon in this part of the universe and decided to meander our way back home on quaint county and state roads instead of the interstate. Maybe I had planned the route on the fly just to drive past the palace of rust on the way home but the world may never know. Wink.

Think Hoarders meets American Pickers. This place was stacked floor to ceiling and wall to wall with stuff. From tools to lanterns and lawn mowers to clocks this guy had everything. If he didn’t have it you don’t need it. My first grab off the wall was this solid combination square. Fair price at five dollars. But surely this wasn’t all that I needed from this heap of stuff unlike I’ve seen for a few years.

So then I asked for a specific item from the guy sitting on the stool in bib overalls and a local farm store hat. “Hey man do you have any spoke shaves around here?” His reply, “Yeah I believe we have one right over there.” My thought was he knows he has ONE. In all this chaos he knows this. But to my surprise he points me to a pile along the wall near where I plucked the square off the wall. “Should be right there or maybe a little to your right.” Now he was just being a back seat driver. After Desira and I dug for a minute he sauntered over to help dig for the object of my request. And then like a prophecy he pulled the spoke shave from the abyss.

We made it out of the treasure chest and only spent twenty-two bucks. Not to bad but if I had more cash on hand that total could have easily rose to triple digits.

The store is run by a husband and wife team. An older couple who seemed very nice and were friendly. We chatted about carboys and wine. And bacon since that was the reason for the trip. They turned us on to another meat processor in the area to try and we may in the future. If we decide to try the other bacon you can bet that trip will involve a stop by this cathedral of cast iron.